


Loyalty

by Onlymostydead



Series: Jason Todd Month [4]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Abandonment, Drug reference, Gen, Homelessness Reference, Loss of Teeth, Major character death - Freeform, Prison Reference, Referenced Canon Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 22:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20713349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onlymostydead/pseuds/Onlymostydead
Summary: Family: A group consisting of parents and children living together in a household.Jason scoffed. That definition was bullshit, with his dad gone, and his mom... She was trying her best, but even at their best they couldn't really all be together. No, it went more like this:Family: The people you have loyalty to; the ones you would do anything for.





	Loyalty

**Author's Note:**

> These are all so late, but honestly, I'm just having a good time.

Family was always a tricky word for Jason. It had to be for everyone in Crime Alley, to be fair, where your gang family and your birth family and your friends were all separate things that got mixed up together so easily. Or maybe they stayed completely separate, needing totally different definitions. Maybe you only had one. However it worked, it was complicated, and he knew that. He got it. 

What did family even mean? How was it defined? From a young age, Jason was dragging out dictionaries, searching for the meanings of words he heard used too many different ways. His dad teased him about it a little bit, said he'd be the smart one, that he'd be a doctor one day - not a dropout. He didn't get that, but he smiled with a missing-toothed grin and read out whatever he was looking for.

Family: A group consisting of parents and children living together in a household.

He liked that definition, used it, shouted it at kids who said that his mom wasn't his real mom since she didn't give birth to him. She loved him. She raised him. She ruffled his hair when he looked up the definitions to big words, encouraging him to keep studying and using that brain of his. She was his mom. Those were all of the things that made her his mom. Because his parents were his parents, and he was their child.

Except... Then his dad went to prison.

And his mom started getting sicker and sicker with the addiction, stopped being able to be so engaged because her head was so lost in the medication.

Then, really, he wasn't living in the household as much as sleeping there, trying to keep at least the water on, heating on in the winter, and the rent payed year round so his mom could stay there. 

And when he thought about it, that definition was still bullshit, because his family was still his family with them all split up and struggling to survive. His dad still thought about him when he thought about different words, sometimes. His mom still did her best. And he was working for his family. The more people he met, too, the fewer of them had anything close to what he had. No, Jason forged his own definition of family.

Family: The people you have loyalty to; the ones you would do anything for. 

It was so much more than blood relation - hell, that had nothing to do with it. Making it about blood just cheapened the bond that they had, really. A true family, a real family, were the ones who looked out for each other. Who provided for each other.

It was the way his dad was out there, working with Two Face to scrape together a living... Before prison, that was. That was a job he hated, and he worked it for them. And even from prison, he still loved them; the moment he was out, he would be back for them. Jason knew that. He got it.

Because they were family. And family meany they were loyal, no matter what.

It was the way his mom was always there for him when he needed her. It wasn't her fault that she was sick; she had just been in so much pain, and she had been trying everything to fix it, and it all spiraled out of control, and... She was doing her best. It was never negligence. Sometimes she just needed someone to look after her. And that was okay, too.

They were where he came from, who he was as a person. Family was why he did what he did, the people who influenced him. 

The people he loved.

Then everything changed, and Jason Todd swore he would never have family again.

***

Sitting in the back of one of his fancy cars, in one of his fancy suits, dressed up to look like one of his people, Jason slumped down in his seat. If he could slide down far enough maybe he could disappear; maybe the expensive, tailor-made suit would swallow him whole.

Of course, it hadn't yet, but still. All of this just made him want to scream at the top of his lungs:

"Bruce Wayne isn't my father!"

"He isn't my family!"

"He's not my dad!"

Just because he was taken in by him, or just because Bruce was a good person, or just because he was Batman for fucks sake, didn't mean that he was automatically family. Sharing a roof with him didn't make them related. He trusted him, sure, he entrusted his life to him out on patrol, but...

True loyalty? Could he give that to him? I mean, he was... They were...

Because at heart, as he stared out the window at the Gotham streets rolling by, at the rain pouring down on the tinted windows, Jason was still with his family. His other family. Back at the manor he still had a store of canned goods, things that wouldn't go bad quickly if he had to leave the Manor for some reason. He still crept around on his toes, not making a sound. Never relaxing, never calming down.

He wasn't at home there; he felt like an imposter.

Because the Jason Todd the media fawned over was fake. The one sitting in the back of this fancy car right now, trying to hide from the world. He didn't exist. He was just the outer shell, the hair gel and dental work and clean cut suits tailored to fit his scrawny body, but also to give the illusion that he was, well...

Healthier. The makeup smeared under his eyes concealing years of street living, of poor sleeping on a mattress shared with a mother who-

-who did her best, Jason interrupted himself, shaking his head. It was hard to live with her, yeah, but... She was family. She was a part of him. He got it. He understood. 

And besides. You didn't talk poorly about the dead. You didn't. It just wasn't right.

The media didn't see her when they saw him, though. They didn't see the child of a drug addict with too much heart and a thug who was just trying to scrape out a living for his family. They see the cleaned up, cookie-cutter version, the charity case, the Bruce Wayne image stamped on a little kid made into whatever they wanted him to be.

And they loved him for it. For what they made him into.

He wondered if Bruce loved him for it.

Loyalty...

Jason slid down further in his seat as the car turned, the seatbelt digging into his stomach and pushing his tie into his throat. He couldn't bring himself to care, though; the less the media could see of him, the better. They were always taking pictures of him, in cars, walking around, just going back to the streets that he considered home, they always caught pictures of him.

And he had to admit: sometimes it was fun. But a game was only fun while everyone was playing, and right now he was done. He just wanted to hide.

He missed his dad's overcoat that he used to pull on, hiding his whole body.

He missed sharing a bed with his mom, tucking under the covers with her and hiding from the world.

And as the rain poured down outside, the almost wished he was out there to hide the tears starting to roll down his cheeks.

***

Sheila Haywood.

Jason frowned at the name, running the test through the batcomputer again... Just to be sure. It wasn't that this woman couldn't be the one to appear on the screen; she very well could be. It was just that...

Well...

After this long, following this many leads, he couldn't believe he was actually here.

Of course, this wasn't where the line ended. That wouldn't make any sense at all. No, he still had his work cut out for him, while Bruce partied away at a Wayne charity gala held outside on the grounds, with all the fancy lights strung on the pavilion, everyone sipping fancy champagne with frozen fruit decorating the bottom of their glasses to show that it was summertime.

He had to admit... He and Bruce had gotten really close there, for a bit. When he got sick, he took care of him, not Alfred. When he was close to passing out from exhaustion after missions, Bruce carried him up to his room... After much protest.

He convinced him that he didn't need to stock up on food in his room anymore. Jason still had a small pile of nonperishables, just in case, but it wasn't anything like before. He was...

Family. There, he said it. Bruce Wayne, against all odds, was family.

Except, recently, Bruce had been distant.

Sheila Haywood...

And this woman, same one, confirmed after an additional run through the batcomputer, was the closest blood relative he had left: his biological mom. The woman who left him with his dad when he was just a baby. He had no clue if she would even want to see him even, but...

She was, in another definition, family. She was a blood relative. Sure, that meant they were complete strangers, but...

He had to try. He had to.

So now for the work of tracking her down, while Bruce was still occupied. Because he couldn't track down any of his other family, his mom, his dad - so he may as well try with her.

Sheila Haywood.

And he would be lying if he said that he wasn't nervous.

Family: A group consisting of parents and children living together in a household.

She definitely didn't fit that description; and there was no parents, either. Just one, if she even claimed that title, which he doubted she would, and they didn't live together.

Family: The people you have loyalty to; the ones you would do anything for. 

And he couldn't be loyal to her - he'd never met her. But, as much as he could, he would do for her. Even though she abandoned him. Even though-

Why was this hurting him so much?

Jason wiped his eyes and continued, trying to track down her location. That was years ago - almost sixteen years now. Maybe... Since she wouldn't have to provide for him, maybe she would have him as family. Maybe.

He could only hope.

But if she didn't... He got it. He understood.

Her location popped up on the map, and Jason sucked in a deep breath.

This was it.

This was it.

***

Loyalty.

She was just doing her best, Jason told himself, the concrete cold beneath his body, leeching the body heat out of him. His dad's voice in his head told him to get up, that people froze to death on the streets because they slept on the ground, but he couldn't. 

He couldn't.

Loyalty.

He wasn't being loyal to Bruce by coming here, was he? Bruce who was, in every way, like another dad to him. Not like his dad was, like another kind of dad. Like a Bruce kind of dad. The kind he called Boss. The kind who wasn't allowed in Alfred's kitchen. The kind who told him, "Good job, kiddo." After a night of patrol. The kind who watched dumb movie with him when he was sick, and didn't complain once. The kind who loved him, even though he never said the words. He got it. He got that.

He was family.

And he ran away, didn't he?

But he would come get him. He knew he would.

Jason struggled to pull himself up, fighting to breath even. The Joker - he had torn him apart. But... At least it wasn't Sheila. She couldn't help that she was used as bait. She couldn't help that...

She was still in here.

The bomb was ticking down.

Time was running out.

Jason spat the blood out of his mouth, a tooth coming with it. Probably a fake one; they were all fake, there days. Part of the Wayne image, chipping away. But his mouth had to be clear to speak.

"Get-" He choked. "Get over there. Take cover." 

Sheila looked at him with wide eyes, then did what he said. Took cover.

Hopefully, she would get out of this if the building exploded. That's the safest spot for her to be, anyway. That was all he could do for her.

Except for the bomb.

Jason dragged himself over to it and got to work, broken fingers doing their best at parsing through the wire, cutting the right ones, beating the time...

But the clock was ticking down.

Bruce was coming.

He had to be.

He had to-

***

Everything was hazy.

Dark, and swirling. Black spots danced across Jason's vision. Lack of oxygen, probably. Assess the damage...

He coughed, throat spasming, eyes nearly rolling back into his head.

But there were arms holding him, someone was... Cradling...

Blinking, he tried to pull it all into focus. Into focus.

"Bruce?" Jason breathed, voice weak and scratchy. "Is that...?"

"I'm here." He whispered back. "I'm here, Jason. I'm here."

He wasn't alone. He wasn't alone.

He was with his family.

Jason closed his eyes, and everything was cold.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at Supertinywords or Supertinybats!
> 
> Oneshot Requests for Fictober are open!
> 
> Comments are love <3


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